With a handle that brings to mind visions of an embattled World War II aircraft carrier or a Dick Tracy villain, Flattop Tom & His Jump Cats, have enjoyed a longer (and safer) shelf life than the former and can dance better than the latter. To that end, the band is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a Friday night event at the Hong Kong Inn in Ventura, quite likely to quickly evolve from gig to dance party.

The band was born back when swing was the thing, and Flattop Tom — whose last name is Hall — was in on all that at the very beginning as one of dancers. Swing dancing started back in the '20s in Harlem — one of the popular varieties was the Lindy Hop and a memorable example always will be Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in "It's A Wonderful Life," filmed in the Beverly Hills swim gym. Swing dancing was resurrected again in the '90s when there was seemingly a swing dance somewhere every night of the week.

Swing dancing features people that dance better than you do, dress better than you do, but drink a lot less, which proved to be the undoing of swing but that's another story. While swing has swung for the most part, the music lives on.

Flattop — well, he'll be easy to pick out — will be wailing on his harmonica, leading his tight band playing jump blues, a genre your feet will understand right away. These guys have the technology to supply some much needed rhythm to the Walkers should it come to that. With more than three decades teaching at Alhambra High School, Flattop just doesn't stay home concocting lesson plans and grading papers. He discussed his cool night job during a recent phoner.

Hey, Tom, what’s the latest with you? I haven’t talked to you for a while. …

Yeah, everything's going good. We've got this 25th anniversary celebration coming. We started back in 1992 before all the retro swing stuff was happening — about '93 or '94, that's when things started, you know, blowing up, and then it started tapering down around 2000. We've still been getting gigs, just not as many. There's just not as many places to play, actually.

I've been a Civil War re-enactor for a long time but almost all the fun guys either quit drinking, got married — or both — and stopped coming out but still have a closet-full of guns and gear. Are there a lot of former swing dancers with closets full of cool zoot suits?

(laughs) Yeah, people at the Derby, which used to be the big club in Hollywood — they used to dress up, but you know, that lasted for about five years until the club went under. Tammy, the gal that owned it had cancer. After she passed away, her husband didn't really want to stick with it, so that was sort of one nail in the coffin as far as clubs go, you know? But, yeah, all those guys with zoot suits come out every now and then.

When did you get your first flattop?

Oh, when I was a kid — when I was in high school playing football. If you had short hair, it helped your helmet fit tighter.

The jock look?

Yeah, that's kinda where it started. Then people started calling me that, and when I'd be at shows they didn't know my name and they'd say, "Hey, Flattop!"

Are there other flattops in high school or are you a vanishing breed?

Not really — the kids now have the buzz cut; you know, the prison look — the gangbanger look.

Yeah, I see that every day.

So, they like the shaved head look but for different reasons — they tend to identify with rappers or gangbangers, you know, that kind of thing.

So, 25 years is a long time for anything, especially for a band. How do you account for your longevity?

Yeah, not many bands have lasted that long. From that era, a lot of blues guys I played with — Rod Piazza and James Harman — they're still going, but they're like me; they don't do as many shows because there's not as many clubs to play. The blues scene in the '90s was good — we had shows pretty near every week. And thanks to the swing thing, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is still playing — I think they're playing the state fairs, private parties and like that. We do a lot of private parties and get gigs from the internet, where the good money is.

How would you explain the continuing attraction of this music?

It's good time music. In all the songs we do, they're just … just classics. If you're playing
"Flip, Flop and Fly" by Big Joe Turner or "Johnny B. Goode," those are always going to be songs that people like and will get people up and dancing. We do originals in the '40s and '50s style — it's just fun music. There's really no political statements involved; and a song like "Route 66"? It's gonna be popular until the end of time, you know what I mean? People can sing along with them, and you know, we focus on our originals, too, and that helps out a lot.

So what don't you do now that you used to do when you started this crazy adventure?

Oh, jeez … when I first started playing, I had this cordless mike and I would like, walk through the audience or walk on the bar with my harmonica. I still dance once in a while with people in the crowd but not as much as I used to. I'd get out there when guys were doing solos — doing aerials — throwing the girls over my head, but I've got a bad back now, so I don't do it as much but once in a while I'll pull one out, you know? If the girl's light enough. …

Good point.

Yeah, and we don't do as many four set shows — shows that were like, four sets in a bar, so I don't like those kinds of shows as much anymore. It just wears you out.

Who's the drunkest person you ever saw that wasn't in your band?

Wow. There was one guy at Joe's Bar & Grill down in Riverside — they had Swing Night every Tuesday — and this guy was just throwing up in front of the restaurant. This was when we were showing up so he must've been drinking all day.

So this guy was barfing before you even played?

Yeah, he was throwing up before we even played, and I thought, "Wow, this guy got a head start on everybody."

No doubt. So Roomful of Blues and William Clarke? They're to blame for all this?

Yeah, those two — William Clarke was my main influence on harmonica — chromatic and diatonic. He blew with incredible power and he was a real innovator — you'd see him one time and he'd play totally different the next time, and like a real blues cat, it was all about how he felt that particular night. If he was in a more depressed mood, he'd play more slow blues or he'd play more jump and up tempo if he was in a better mood. The length of his songs was always different. The set list was always different, so I learned a lot from that. He played harmonica backwards, upside down, so some of the things he did on harmonica are hard to replicate; you know, a lot of people copy Little Walter but not that many people copy William Clarke.

So Clarke was the harmonica version of Dick Dale, who I believe, played guitar upside down and backwards?

Yeah, a goofy footer guitar player. Yeah, and Roomful of Blues — I'd always see them when they came through town at the Palomino when they had the horns.

Yeah, back in the day, the horn was the guitar. Someone just sent me a reissue to Little Richard's first album and those horn guys seriously rage. And the guitar player? Could hardly tell that he was even there.

Yeah, a lot of the jump units like Louis Jordan ad Louis Prima — if they even had a guitar, it was more of a support instrument — just chords and not really a solo instrument. People that came from the Big Band era were more horn oriented.

That’s right. Bobby "Blue" Bland in his prime? Can't top that.

Oh, yeah. We do one of his song, "Further Up the Road." It's one of his great ones.

You’ve been a teacher for a long time, when did you decide you wanted to become a musician? Have you been doing both all along?

No, I didn't start playing until I was 27. I saw William Clarke play at the Topanga Canyon Blues Festival. Yeah, so he was playing and Linda Hopkins, Paul Butterfield and Big Joe Turner were there, so that was the show that really got me going. I talked to William Clarke that day and got one of his albums — an album, not a CD — so that started me wanting to play harmonica. That's an instance of when just one person sort of knocks you out, and you want to learn how to do something.

So after you got your first harmonica when did you decide you might have some night work in your future?

With a harmonica, it's tricky but you can start playing melodies on day No. 1 — you know, "Three Blind Mice" or "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" or whatever, so you get some success right away, whereas with a piano or a guitar, it's a lot harder to knock out a melody right away. Then once you get farther along, you have to bend notes to hit certain notes and use your diaphragm — well, that's when you separate the men from the boys. You gotta put a lot of time in and get it right. So you can progress quicker on a harmonica but certain people just have a knack for it, you know?

And loading your gear is no sweat.

Yeah. To me it's great because you can just carry it in your pocket and you can practice any time you want. So when I'm teaching, in between classes, I can practice, so if I can get half an hour a day, and since you can always carry it with you, and so when you go to a jam session, it’s just easy to get up and play right away.

So the two dollar Hohner, that's over?

They're way up there now — close to 40 bucks for a harmonica, but I have a deal with the company so I get half off.

How long do they last?

Six months to a year but certain keys that you play more will blow out quicker. I blow out a lot of B flats because a lot of horn players like to play in B flat, so I’ll go through those real quick.

How many harmonicas does a harmonica player need for a show?

I always take two sets of harmonicas with me. The knock on harmonica players amongst musicians is that some of the guys don't have all the keys or they don't have spares or they play a harmonica with one of the reeds is blown out; so I have a second case with me just in case. If I blow one out in the middle of a song, then I can turn around and grab a replacement right away.

I use 12, plus I have two chromatics — a C chromatic and a B Flat chromatic — so 14 in each set, so 28 harmonicas total at a show.

What's the strangest gig you’ve ever played? Was it still opening for Donovan? That would seem to be a tough one to top. …

Yeah, we actually opened for him — that was at the Viper Room in Hollywood. He was a big thing, and so it was Donovan and all these hippie type guys were there, and we were there and we had our swing dancers and jump blues people, so it was really sort of a mixed crowd. We had our full eight-pieces and we were blasting and he decided for some reason, to do his show acoustic. So he followed us and just went up there by himself with a guitar.

So, he's up there doing "Catch the Wind" after you guys?

Yeah, so it was kind of anti-climactic and didn't go over too well for him. We had the crowd all revved up and he came out with a set that wasn't too energetic.

So was he cool to you guys?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but we didn't talk to him too much but he enjoyed our band and liked our music and stuff, so that was cool.

How do you get up for a show every night?

I just think of William Clarke and try to give 100 percent every night. To me, it's like when I played sports, so I just approach it like it was a football game where you sort of get psyched up and have a rough sketch of what you want to do. I like to jump around and we never have the same set list — I sort of go with what the crowd gives to me. If I see there's more dancers there, I'll play more dance music; if I see there's more blues people, then I'll play more blues, so I just try to get a real feel for the audience. The main thing is that I want to get people up and dancing because we are a dance band.

It's just like teaching — you gotta know your audience.

Yeah, I've seen too many bands that play too many songs that sound the same; you know, a lot of blues bands get caught in that rut — not even changing keys.

Yeah, the one song, one beat, one week scenario. …

Yeah, I see that once in a while when I go out and check out other bands.

You've played up here a bunch — how many Jump Cats will you be bringing for this one?

We're up to seven pieces, plus I've got a bunch of guys that might sit in that have played with me over the years.

What happens when your students see you on Facebook?

Actually, it works against me. They'll yell out "Flattop!" or "Flattop sucks!" If they’re into music, I'll talk to them after class — something like that.

OK, Tom, that should be more than I need to know — look forward to seeing you jump around in Ventura. Thanks for your time. ...

GETTING THERE

Locey's picks

If I had a faster car, a richer girlfriend or even one with a job, here’s where I’d be lurking in the back this week:Jerry Lee Lewis at Theatre @ Ace in Los Angeles (Friday)Ozomatli at The Canyon in Agoura Hills (Friday)The Stoneflys at Discovery Ventura (Friday)Paradise Kings at Uptown Lounge in Santa Barbara (Friday)Silversun Pickups at Theatre @ Ace (Saturday)Chris Price at McCabe’s in Santa Monica (Saturday)Jeff Uzzel at Relm in Camarillo (Saturday)Teresa Russell at Beachcomber Tavern in Oxnard (Saturday)RJ Mischo at Madewest Brewery in Ventura (Saturday)Surfrider Benefit w with Rising Son at Discovery Ventura (Saturday)Ball & Sultan at Cold Spring Tavern in Santa Barbara (Sunday)Alastair Greene at Red Piano in Santa Barbara (Monday)Headless Household at SOhO in Santa Barbara (Tuesday)Chris Rock at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles (Wednesday and Thursday)Bright Light Bright Light at Satellite in Los Angeles (Wednesday)Local Music Showcase at Rock City in Camarillo (Wednesday)Frank Barajas at Fresco II in Oxnard (Wednesday)Jade Hendrix at Amigo’s in Ventura (Wednesday)Dhani Harrison at El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles (Thursday)Freebo & Friends at Bogie’s in Westlake (Thursday)Cornerstone, Legalizer at Discovery Ventura (Thursday)Gypsy Stew at Hong Kong Inn (Thursday)